U.S.U.R.P. Garden: Winston-Salem, NC
Usurp \U*surp"\, v.i.
[1] To commit forcible seizure of place, power, or function.
[2] Acronym: Urban Space Utility Repurposing Project.
_______________________________________________________
OK... So I made up the second definition to suit my purpose, and give my garden a cool sounding name. Also, the owner of the property, which is home to The Hut Collective, not only encouraged me to develop the space, he helped with the digging!
Last July I blogged about my Urban Garden in an article called "Locavores, Patio Gardens and Recapturing Urban Garden Space" It seems I am not the only one who thinks paying 4$ per red pepper, or 8$/lb for decent tomatoes is outrageous. Plus, nothing tastes better than a freshly picked tomato, a still-muddy crisp carrot or a fresh-picked salad.
Although for years I have been an avid fire-escape gardener, I decided to establish a more substantial garden in the triangular lot adjacent to the building where my woodworking shop is located. [aerial photo] The area I had chosen for "re-purposing" had previously been a gravel driveway, so the ground was hard-compacted and covered in gravel. A friend with a tractor skimmed the surface roughly to level and used the gravelly earth he removed to re-enforce the banks of the nearby creek.
Raised beds are the key...spare bricks border the herb bed
The USURP Garden now consists of 8 raised beds in an area of roughly 1500 square feet. The raised beds have proven to be very helpful in avoiding the deluge of rain run-off from the roof of the quonset hut. Last summer I built a 70-foot fence out of reclaimed shipping crates with the help of a few friends. The fence now encloses the garden and creek area from curious and peckish bipedal marauders. Currently I am seeding a small "green space" for a barbecue/picnic area for small gatherings of friends.
Carrots----------Spinach--------Radish--------Mesclun Mix
I really like Zucchini grilled on the Barbecue, so today I decided that I needed to find space for my seedling Zucchinis to be planted and also somewhere to transplant some sweet corn. That required digging a new bed. No small feat when clay and rock are your natural soil conditions. Fortunately over the past year I had maintained a topsoil/compost pile for this very reason. Kitchen scraps from my house, and friends houses were added throughout the winter and it had reached that impressive dark rich soil texture in which the Zukes will thrive. But first I had to dig out the hardpacked clay and rock. It looked like this:
Carolina Red Clay and Rock... A#!@$^ing nightmare
I dug down about 10 inches then added a wheelbarrow of Red Cedar shavings that my shopmate Jacob had donated. The new bed measures about 5'x8'. Then I added about 12-14 inches of the rich compost/soil I had on hand and "Voila!"
Sweet Corn and Zucchini Growing Together
Herb/Medicinal Bed: Mint, Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Tarragon, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Lavender/Echinichea, Lemon Balm, St. John's Wort, Sunflowers, Raspberries and Blackberries.
Bed 1: Celery, Red Peppers, Brussels Sprouts, Orange Peppers, Carrots, Spinach, Radishes, Mesclun Salad Mix
Bed 2: Bush Cherry Tomatoes, Poblano Peppers, Roma, Brandywine, and Yellow Tomatoes, Tamatillos, Okra
Bed 3: Beets, Romaine Lettuce, Spring Onions, Cowhorn Peppers, Leeks, Eggplant
Bed 4: [Trellised] 4 String Bean varieties, Sugar Snap Peas, Snow Peas
Bed 5: Sweet Corn, Pole beans
Bed 6: Cucumbers and Cantaloupe
Bed 7: Zucchini, Sweet Corn
I get a "little" help from some of my friends...
Grow Off Photos:
Growing Raspberries
Growing Basil
Cucumber Explosion
Bush Cherry Tomatoes
Mesclun Salad Mix
Growing Dill
World Record Peppers?
To View A Slideshow of Growth Click Here
[1] To commit forcible seizure of place, power, or function.
[2] Acronym: Urban Space Utility Repurposing Project.
_______________________________________________________
OK... So I made up the second definition to suit my purpose, and give my garden a cool sounding name. Also, the owner of the property, which is home to The Hut Collective, not only encouraged me to develop the space, he helped with the digging!
Last July I blogged about my Urban Garden in an article called "Locavores, Patio Gardens and Recapturing Urban Garden Space" It seems I am not the only one who thinks paying 4$ per red pepper, or 8$/lb for decent tomatoes is outrageous. Plus, nothing tastes better than a freshly picked tomato, a still-muddy crisp carrot or a fresh-picked salad.
Although for years I have been an avid fire-escape gardener, I decided to establish a more substantial garden in the triangular lot adjacent to the building where my woodworking shop is located. [aerial photo] The area I had chosen for "re-purposing" had previously been a gravel driveway, so the ground was hard-compacted and covered in gravel. A friend with a tractor skimmed the surface roughly to level and used the gravelly earth he removed to re-enforce the banks of the nearby creek.
In the first stages of re-purposing, it looked like this:
After dozens of yards of dark topsoil, mulch, compost and sweat, it was transformed into this:
Raised beds are the key...spare bricks border the herb bedThe USURP Garden now consists of 8 raised beds in an area of roughly 1500 square feet. The raised beds have proven to be very helpful in avoiding the deluge of rain run-off from the roof of the quonset hut. Last summer I built a 70-foot fence out of reclaimed shipping crates with the help of a few friends. The fence now encloses the garden and creek area from curious and peckish bipedal marauders. Currently I am seeding a small "green space" for a barbecue/picnic area for small gatherings of friends.
Carrots----------Spinach--------Radish--------Mesclun MixOn Preparing New Beds:
I really like Zucchini grilled on the Barbecue, so today I decided that I needed to find space for my seedling Zucchinis to be planted and also somewhere to transplant some sweet corn. That required digging a new bed. No small feat when clay and rock are your natural soil conditions. Fortunately over the past year I had maintained a topsoil/compost pile for this very reason. Kitchen scraps from my house, and friends houses were added throughout the winter and it had reached that impressive dark rich soil texture in which the Zukes will thrive. But first I had to dig out the hardpacked clay and rock. It looked like this:
Carolina Red Clay and Rock... A#!@$^ing nightmareI dug down about 10 inches then added a wheelbarrow of Red Cedar shavings that my shopmate Jacob had donated. The new bed measures about 5'x8'. Then I added about 12-14 inches of the rich compost/soil I had on hand and "Voila!"
Sweet Corn and Zucchini Growing TogetherCurrently Growing:
Herb/Medicinal Bed: Mint, Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Tarragon, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Lavender/Echinichea, Lemon Balm, St. John's Wort, Sunflowers, Raspberries and Blackberries.
Bed 1: Celery, Red Peppers, Brussels Sprouts, Orange Peppers, Carrots, Spinach, Radishes, Mesclun Salad Mix
Bed 2: Bush Cherry Tomatoes, Poblano Peppers, Roma, Brandywine, and Yellow Tomatoes, Tamatillos, Okra
Bed 3: Beets, Romaine Lettuce, Spring Onions, Cowhorn Peppers, Leeks, Eggplant
Bed 4: [Trellised] 4 String Bean varieties, Sugar Snap Peas, Snow Peas
Bed 5: Sweet Corn, Pole beans
Bed 6: Cucumbers and Cantaloupe
Bed 7: Zucchini, Sweet Corn
I get a "little" help from some of my friends...Growing Raspberries
Growing Basil
Cucumber Explosion
Bush Cherry Tomatoes
Mesclun Salad Mix
Growing Dill
World Record Peppers?
To View A Slideshow of Growth Click Here
9 comments:
I like your idea of using bricks to edge the beds. For its treeboxes, the
Trinidad gardening club turns bricks sideways & diagonally so that the corners stick up, creating a pinked or scalloped edge to the bed. It's quite pretty.
Can I add some mesclun mix to my order of peppermint??
Next, armed with bandoliers of seed bags and fold down shovels...the guerilla gardening, lol.
What a beautiful garden, and wonderful pictures too. I'm growing tomatoes and some herbs on my balcony and can't wait until they ripe.
Keep up the good work!
The Mesclun mix is one pf my favorites. The salad mix is a Wyatt-Quarles seed blend
[www.wqseeds.com] that includes:
Parris Island Cos Lettuce, Oak leaf lettuce, Red Deer Tongue Lettuce, Speckled Bibb Lettuce, Salad Bowl Lettuce, Tatsoi, Mizuna Mustard, and Bloomsdale Spinach
Good work! I'm impressed. My brown thumb has not become any greener although my efforts to cultivate have increased. I have managed to keep a ficus and some purslane alive, but my attempts at herb gardening have failed repeatedly. I remember the delicious, home-cooked meals, and I'll bet the home-grown veggies are a wonderful addition.
now that's a garden! i started one last year but the blazing heat did in my tomoto plants after a few weeks and I grew despairing.
How often do you have to water your garden?
check out this site:
www.guerillagardening.org
Hey I love your garden! Do you know what the industry was or is that it is next to? Nothing toxic hopefully? Sunflowers are supposed to have an amazing ability to draw poisons out of the soil... Have you read 'One Straw Revolution' by Masanobu Fukuoka? I highly recommend it to you! Have you added any earth worms?
I LOVE your recycled fence! I see so much discarded lumber at construction sites and have a fantasy company that collects this discarded material and creates outdoor furniture with it... cheers!
theurbanplanter.blogspot.com
Delilah
I moved your comment up from the earlier "Locavores" article because there were so many interesting questions/
suggestions that I wanted to respond to here:
First of all, your blog is really interesting and has great photography. I followed all of your other gardening links and was truly inspired by the "green thumbed" work of others.
As for the building's history, it was built in the '50s and operated as a metalworking shop for most of it's life. For the past 6 years it has been occupied by a crafty group of wood-workers, metalsmiths, and builders. A dance/yoga studio and performance space occupy the "clean" adjoining building. The soil was tested and came up clean of industrial contaminants, but while digging I uncovered over a hundred pounds of steel and aluminum "offcuts", as well as glass.
I had heard that sunflowers were helpful in leeching poisons from the soil, and so I planted a dozen or so this year. Pursuant to "bigger is better" I planted the Goliath Sunflower that reach up to 10'. So far my tallest is about 5' and 1.5" in diameter.
I have been meaning to do some worm work (vermicomposting) but have not yet got around to it...yet.
I'll check out "One Straw Revolution", and have been meaning to read The Guerilla Gardening Manualfesto, which you cover in your blog.
Look for more greencycled projects in the near future. I am working on some right now. I am open to any suggestions...
Wow!
Your garden looks extraordinary, by the way, and i am entirely jealous. i'm growing my very first one ever behind our apartment building in chicago, and i'm proud of the monster weeds and bushes i dug up in order to prep the area, but the garden itself is a little haphazard and uninformed.
i've got two tomato plants (which i did not adequately thin and which i also did not cage early enough), two asian eggplant plants, one sweet pepper, one hot pepper, various herbs, failed lettuce, sweet peas, and formerly a couple of radish plants (the roots developed badly but the greens were yummy, so once i'd eaten them up i dug up the roots and repurposed the area). if i can find some already started zucc or cuke plants i'm going to throw those in too.
Too late for seed...
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